AGU 2008
data sharing and science:
legal, normative, and social issues
john wilbanks
creative commons / science commons

Copyright
All Rights
Reserved
No Rights
Reserved

Copyright
All Rights
Reserved
No Rights
Reserved

licensing
step 1: choose conditions
Attribution Share Alike
Non-Commercial No Derivative Works

licensing
step 2: receive a license

Ported to 50
Jurisdictions

160M

160M

1. bait and switch: data
integration.

databases as unique entities,
instead of nodes in a network

“packages”

scalable aggregation

not-software
scalable
modular

lots of people
open licenses
community norms

science is not unlike wikipedia...

science is not unlike wikipedia...
...except authenticated, and expensive.

2. analog laws and
norms, digital world.

internet network of computers
web network of documents
research web network of knowledge

internet tcp/ip
web http, html, URL
research web RDF, OWL, URI

internet tcp/ip
web http, html, URL
research web RDF, OWL, URI

©
creative expression

the container, not the facts.

the container, not the facts.
but © locks the container.

IGFBP-5 plays a role in the
regulation of cellular senescence
via a p53-dependent pathway
and in aging-associated
vascular diseases

IGFBP-5 plays a role in the
regulation of cellular senescence
via a p53-dependent pathway
and in aging-associated
vascular diseases

indexing: disallowed.
http://orpheus-1.ucsd.edu/acq/license/cdlelsevier2004.pdf

creative
work?

legal integration: impossible.
http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/gkm1037/DC1/1

and what about ontologies?

copyrightable?

copyrightable?
“it’s complicated.”

•and junk) (quality control: spam
extension
•integrity and attribution) loss of
remix (brand confusion,
•common(failure to adhere to
formats
protocols or
technology)
•of all Web things...)
persistence (the transient nature

incremental innovation in the law:
more accretion than innovation.

3. basic requirements for
modular, package-based
approaches to “knowledge”

e pluribus unum.

a repository of ontologies,
namespaces, and integrated
databases.
http://neurocommons.org

it starts with the public
domain.

“requests but does not require”

identical to genome licensing
the freedom to integrate

requires a modular,
standards-based
approach to licensing.

license propagation: whatsoever you do to the
least of the databases, you do to the integrated
system

license propagation: whatsoever you do to the
least of the databases, you do to the integrated
system
(the most restrictive license wins)

a protocol, not a license

3.1 The protocol must promote legal predictability
and certainty.
3.2 The protocol must be easy to use and
understand.
3.3 The protocol must impose the lowest possible
transaction costs on users.

converge on the public domain:
“norms, not laws”

conclusion?

1. start with the public
domain.
2. design data for use, not
control.
3. hack and release!

“a running Neurocommons mirror consumes
a fair amount of system resources”

http://kingsley.idehen.name:8890
http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMINeuroCommonsInstall

thank you
wilbanks@creativecommons.org
http://sciencecommons.org